07 — Relics and the Cult
What became of Hilarion after his death on Cyprus: the disciple Hesychius, by Jerome’s account, secretly recovered the body and bore it back to Palestine, to the monastery near Majuma where the saint’s monastic life had begun — so that Hilarion came to rest in the soil of the desert he had made a garden of monks. These files establish the translation of the relics and the early cult of the saint in Palestine, on Cyprus, and in the West, where Jerome’s Life carried his name.
Tradition: Pan-Orthodox (Desert Father; father of Palestinian monasticism)
The death of a saint was the beginning of his cult, and the cult of Hilarion has the unusual feature of a contested body: Jerome reports that the Cypriots venerated the tomb where the saint was first buried, while Hesychius spirited the relics back to Palestine, so that two centers — Cyprus and Majuma — both claimed Hilarion. This section treats the dramatic translation of the relics and the spread of the saint’s veneration in the generations after his death, the foundation on which the liturgical cult and the later legacy (Section 09) were built.
Files in This Section
| File | Description |
|---|---|
| The Relics Translated to Palestine | Hesychius and the recovery of the body: the burial on Cyprus, the disciple’s secret return (by Jerome, a pious theft) of the relics to the monastery near Majuma in Palestine; the incorrupt body Jerome reports; the two rival centers of the cult — Cyprus and Majuma — and how the Life presents the translation. |
| The Cult | The early veneration of Hilarion: the cult at Majuma and in Palestine; the continuing cult on Cyprus at the original tomb; the diffusion of his name in the West through Jerome’s Life; the place of relics and their translation in the early Church’s veneration of the saints. |
See Also
- Egypt, Sicily, Dalmatia, Cyprus — the death on Cyprus that the relics’ story follows
- Feast and Cult — the developed liturgical cult and the feast of 21 October
- The Historical Hilarion — the source-critical reading of the relics narrative
- Monasticism — the monastic context of the cult
References
- Jerome. Life of Hilarion (Vita Hilarionis). Trans. Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, 2nd ser., vol. 6. 1893; and trans. Carolinne White, Early Christian Lives. London: Penguin, 1998.
- Sozomen. The Ecclesiastical History III.14; V.10. Trans. Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, 2nd ser., vol. 2. 1890.
- Weingarten, Susan. The Saint’s Saints: Hagiography and Geography in Jerome. Leiden: Brill, 2005.
- Chitty, Derwas J. The Desert a City. Oxford: Blackwell, 1966.